The Magic Flute
Perth Theatre
Superficially, Die Zauberflote looked an odd choice for the Scots Opera Project. Although purists will always want to hear operas in their original language, the convoluted masonic nonsense of Mozart’s The Magic Flute makes singing it in English a sensible step to some clarity. For all that many people in Scotland know – and even speak – more Scots than they realise, Michael Dempster’s new version of the libretto potentially added a different hurdle for the audience.
Beyond that, on paper a Da Ponte opera like Cosi fan tutte or even Don Giovanni would appear to offer more opportunity for the sort of Scots characterisation that has made adaptations of Moliere successes in the theatre. In reality, however, this opening attraction of the 2024 Perth Festival of the Arts was ideal for the job, and that had little or nothing to do with the libretto.
When it was audible, Dr Dempster’s translation sounded just the dab, but with no surtitles (always an asset, even for operas sung in English) a great deal did not make it over the footlights and the six musicians in the pit under the musical direction of pianist Gordon Cree.
Nonetheless, the fact that this cast and chorus had learned an entirely new book spoke volumes for their commitment, and that was evident in every other facet of the production, musically and theatrically a huge success.
Multi-tasking tenor David Douglas was not only our hero Tamino but also the director and producer of the show. Setting the scene during the overture with the retro-tech assistance of an overhead projector, his prince was a patient in an asylum, tended, none too caringly, by the three nursing assistants (Rachael Brimley, Cheryl Forbes and Ulrike Wutscher) to Colleen Nicoll’s imposing matron of a Queen of the Night. The scrubs, metal trolleys and drapes, doubling as projection screens, recalled Milos Forman’s film of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, and into this secure ward Douglas Nairne’s Papageno arrived as a Pest Control warden to find Catriona Clark’s Pamina held in a straitjacket and wheeled around in a skip, like a character in a Beckett play. Michael Cameron-Longden’s gentle Sarastro subsequently appeared as the trusted consultant physician in this febrile clinic.
Within such a restricted environment, the company zipped through an abbreviated version of the score, accompanied by a string quartet and Andrea Kuyper’s flute. There was quality singing from everyone onstage, including the community chorus of other inmates that arrived later, each of them demonstrating their own disturbing affliction.
With Wutscher doubling as Monostatos, and Brimley donning a few feathers to become Papagena later – in a splendidly vulgar and inventive behind-the-curtain love tryst with Papageno – a generously-cast staging demonstrated high production values (even the instrumentalists were costumed) and made effective use of the auditorium as well as the stage. There is, sadly, just one further opportunity to see it, at Sunday’s matinee performance.
Keith Bruce
Picture of David Douglas as Tamino by Fraser Band